Monday, 3 June 2013

Not forgot

This just called to me today - an old friend, gone but not forgotten...

Our friend Dickie

Our friend Dickie
Was tall.
Our friend Dickie
Was gangly and ginger,
His head was hard, his elbows bony,
He liked to cycle,
He fell off in a hedge or three –
Oh, how we laughed, but then –
He fell off in the road,
He fell off on the cycle-path,
He left his bike outside the pub
And fell down anyway.

You see,
Our friend Dickie
Liked a drink
And the drink liked company –
A quick one led to 3, 4, 5, 10,
He nearly disappeared but then
A fine, round, smily girl called Esther
Brought him back, gawd bless ‘er –
Love let him let the drink stay lonely.

They got engaged and all was tea and roses,
Chainsaws and posies,
Or would’ve been if only
A random passing fool,
All cheap-lager-sodden-cruel
And Saturday-nightly shirted-and-tied
Hadn’t picked a fight and hit him –
One punch, legs went, too punch-sober,
He fell,
Head smack-cracked on hard kerb-corner,
Brain-bled, he died –
It was all over bar the mourners.

Our friend Dickie
Wasn’t hard, but like I said,
We thought he had a hard head,
Our friend Dickie
Couldn’t be gone,
Couldn’t be dead
‘Cos he’d only just come back
From the soaked and rotten,
All-but-forgotten side of the tracks,
And if dead,
That’d be wrong –
He’d miss our wedding,
My Best Man’s wedding,
His own wedding,
But he is and he did –
A decade on,
He is still missed.